


holding on to what I haven't got (the sitting in an empty room remix)

by tielan



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Soul-Searching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 13:01:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7619095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hardest part of ending is starting up again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	holding on to what I haven't got (the sitting in an empty room remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meatball42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/gifts).
  * Inspired by [just a voice like a riot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4717997) by [Meatball42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42). 



She goes to visit Director Carter at the nursing home, because she owes the woman the opportunity to change direction, and because there’s nobody she’d rather see during her first Spring Break.

“Agent Hill,” the Director says, her gaze still sharp, without any present sign of the Alzheimers that will eventually overtake her. “How are you doing at the Academy?”

Maria contemplates the answers she can give, and settles for a politic answer. “It’s not quite what I imagined it would be.”

Director Carter smiles. “It never is.”

* * *

Life is not an unbroken line, and Maria knows plenty about changing direction and starting again – a lesson she learned early and often as a child, and which was only reinforced when she joined S.H.I.E.L.D at twenty.

By the time the Black Widow joins S.H.I.E.L.D, though, she’s become accustomed to constancy; the acceptance that global intelligence is complicated and messy, and that her logistical and organizational skills will always be necessary in one form or another.

Then Steve Rogers discovers that S.H.I.E.L.D is actually hiding HYDRA beneath it – that all the effort and work that she’s been putting into world security has gone towards handing the world to an organization that wants to see it chained and subdued, quiescent beneath the foot of Those Who Know Best.

Maria long ago realized that people are messy and complicated and you can show them the way but they have to walk down that road – and half of them won’t because of sheer stroppy pig-headedness and the belief that they know better. Sometimes they do; sometimes they don’t. Maria’s job isn’t to tell them they’re wrong so much as to work with what she has, with what she can change – until she can’t. And then to pick up the pieces afterwards.

So, after she shoots down S.H.I.E.L.D – and Captain America with it – she goes to work with Stark Industries, knowing full well that she’ll end up managing the Avengers. But the truth is that organizing six individuals, no matter how powerful or independent or stubborn, is considerably easier than managing the entirety of the S.H.I.E.L.D organization – particularly when the six individuals know and trust you.

Changes of direction, that’s all. But Maria grows comfortable in it, pleased to be where she is, doing what she’s doing with who she’s working with.

Then Stark creates Ultron who tries to break the world. The Avengers stop him of course (and she’s starting to question the ‘of course’) but in the process, they also destroy large swathes of Eastern Europe, and the politicos are Not Happy.

Maria is...well, it’s not her job to be happy, is it? It’s her job to keep the world turning, in so far as she can using the skills and abilities of the Avengers – in whatever form or state they take.

And _then_ Ross shoehorns the Accords through the political landscape with all the grace of a tactical nuke _en route_ to New York.

And Maria realizes that three times in two years is rather more often than she’d like when picking up the pieces of world security and starting over again.

* * *

“Maria.”

“Captain.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. “Not a good time?”

“It’s never a good time when you’ve gone AWOL with the world’s most wanted.” Maria feels like she’s being a bitch, but hell, she’s angry right now, and Rogers is both a handy and appropriate target. “Especially not when you’re about to ask what you’re going to ask.”

“And if I was going to ask you to marry me?”

She blinks at the tone – almost playful, just a little bit biting. But she rallies coolly. “You’d be well-served if I said yes. But you’re calling because you need to get the others out of the Raft.”

“Is that what it’s called? All I could find was that it was high-security and nobody seems to know where it is.”

Maria grimaces. “That would be because it’s not anywhere. Who do they have?”

“Sam, Wanda, Barton, Lang.”

It takes her a moment to place the last name. And to further realize that another name is absent. “Not Barnes?”

There’s a brief pause. “I have Barnes.”

* * *

Clint’s first question is, “Laura?”

“I offered her the move.”

His expression shows subtle relief, until Maria tells him, “She didn’t take it.”

“ _Stark knows where you live.”_

“ _Do you trust him?”_

_And that’s a tricky question. Yes, she trusts Stark, sort of. Like the rest of the Avengers, she trusts him with the fate of the world. With Laura and Barton’s family?_

“ _It’s not Stark who worries me.”_

“Take it up with Laura,” she tells him as his face darkens.

* * *

Wanda’s restraints are tricky enough that Maria has to wait until they’re airborne and Clint has the controls before she can spare the time to get them off.

As she works on the restraints, she looks Wanda in the eye. “Did they touch you?”

Wanda looks revolted at the thought. “No.”

“Good.” Maria didn’t think it would be a problem, but it was better to ask than not.

She tweaks the RF key for the restraints, and hears the gratifying click of the latches unhooking. Then she fetches balm for Wanda’s wrists as the young woman crushes the restraints in a fiery scarlet glow, only to pause when Steve steps into her path.

“You think Ross’ people would do _that_?”

Maria grimaces. “I think there are no limits to what people will do when they think they have the upper hand.”

* * *

“So where are we headed?” Sam is asking Steve when Maria comes back from a much needed visit to the head. It’s been an exhausting day and she needed a moment. “Seeing as we’re hunted criminals and Barnes isn’t exactly easy to hide.”

“Fuck you, bird-brain,” growls Barnes from the corner.

“Aw, ice-man, I didn’t know you cared.”

“Verbal sex later,” Maria tells them, making Lang choke, “forward planning now.”

“She’s all work, work, work,” sings out Clint from the cockpit.

Maria would give him the finger but he wouldn’t see it. “Steve’s negotiated refuge for Barnes,” she tells them instead, “but the rest of you will have to go into hiding. I have plans for that, but in the meantime, Barnes takes priority.”

* * *

Barnes is watching her in a distinctly unnerving way, considering he’s probably had her in the scope of his rifle at least once in the course of her career.

So Maria doesn’t startle as he comes up alongside her while she’s in a corner reviewing her contacts. “This was your idea.”

“Rogers negotiated it.”

“Yes,” he says, patiently. “But it was your idea.”

“Are you concerned for your safety in Wakanda?”

“No. Just observing.”

She’s kind of glad that he’s going to be out of her orbit. The Winter Soldier might have been programmed for assassination, but Lieutenant Barnes had rank and intelligence and the training to draw conclusions. And Maria’s used to moving through the landscape mostly unnoticed, so the realization that here is someone who actually sees her is disconcerting.

* * *

“I take it Barnes has told you of his decision.”

Steve slides into the chair opposite her and looks her in the eye. “Was it _his_ decision?”

Maria puts down her spoon, figuring her dinner is more or less spoiled. “Who’s going to make the Winter Soldier do what he doesn’t want to do? At least without those codewords? And,” she adds when Steve opens his mouth again, “who’s going to try going up against Captain America on what he thinks is the right thing to do?”

“Stark did.”

“Stark is Stark. The arrogance is pretty good insulation for his sense of self-righteousness.”

He looks at her for a long moment, then asks, “We’re not just talking about Stark, are we?”

“Very perceptive.”

“Why are you angry at me, Maria?” His impatience and annoyance is the last straw, as though Maria hasn’t spent the last few days cleaning up the mess that the Avengers made. The worst part is that the mess that could have been avoided, or at least mitigated, with just a little more thinking, a little less ego, and a phone call to her.

“How long have we worked together?”

“Three years, more or less.”

“Three years,” she repeats. “And it didn’t occur to you to call me when everything started going downhill with Stark and the Accords?”

“It did.” His mouth and chin sets in mulish lines. “I didn’t want to get you involved. You always seem to end up cleaning up after us.”

Maria gives him a look, and waves a hand at the Wakandan facility around them, indicating her current level of involvement. “Next time, Steve, call me in _before_ it reaches international crisis levels.”

* * *

Maria’s closed the door of her apartment before the slender shadow emerges from the spare bedroom.

“And here I was thinking I’d finished the ‘halfway house for homeless heroes’ part of my job.” She drops her bag and tablet on the table and heads for the alcohol cupboard. She needs a drink.

“Believe it or not, this is a social visit.”

Of course it is. The Black Widow is nothing if not prepared for change. Maria doesn’t sigh with relief as she pours herself a gin and tonic, and asks if Natasha wants one with a tilt of a glass.

“I’ll pass.” Natasha watches her pour and rink, hip cocked against the dining table. “Not the job you imagined it would be?”

Maria snorts. “It never is.”

 


End file.
